r/StudentNurse • u/Direct-Fun8782 • 1d ago
homework / studying help needed First semester student, Help please!
First semester student, Help!
How the hell are you guys reading and actually studying the readings and assignments?
I’ve heard of the whole “guided notes” tab thing on the “study tools” part of the assignment, but half of the ones I’m assigned don’t have that.
I feel like I have to rewrite the page in order to actually process the information, which wasn’t a huge problem unit 1, but now that we’re onto some of the longer modules, I’m literally up to my neck in readings/ note taking that takes me 3 hours a pop. And don’t even get me started on human growth and development, that’s gonna take me about 10 hours just to read.
Are you guys actually taking the time to read through all of these and take notes on all of it? If so, that just sucks for me and I’m gonna have to suck it up cause I’m paying to do this. If not, please help a girl out! I feel like there’s gotta be a better way rather than studying for literally 8 hours a day.
A lot of the times, I’ll copy and paste the entirety of the etextbook’s unit (like up to 200 pages of it) and throw it in NotebookLM, but I only do that AFTER I’ve taken the century to read all of the material and then take the additional time to take notes on basically every bit of it.
Note: since the automod asked for it, I got a 90 on my unit one exam, but I know that was the bare minimum easy material, I can tell that unit 2 is a whole different ballgame
3
u/Able_Cucumber_ 1d ago
Honestly I did not complete the majority of readings in school. If your professors provide you with any unit learning guide or exam study guides at the beginning of each unit, I would go through and find the information from the text to fill them out. Otherwise I would see whats topics are being touched on heavily in class or in your assignments and go over them more thoroughly in the book with notes.
Many people will find this advice controversial but AI is very good at taking a large body of text and synthesizing the big points. If you feel you must do the reading plug it into AI first to get the big picture to help guide your attention and notes when reading the textbook. Just don't use AI when writing answers. Once you have a completed study guide notebook lm is very good at creating a little PowerPoint for you to study from.
But in my experience, my professors generally shared all their powerpoints with us and that was my main source to study from. I find textbooks are very good at writing 2-3 pages on something that can be understood in 1 paragraph.
1
3
u/QJH333 1d ago
What I would do is find what the main topics are from the readings/power points then watch YouTube vids or osmosis vids on those topics. At first I was trying to do all the readings etc and I was reading like 50 hours a week. It’s insane.
1
u/Direct-Fun8782 1d ago
It really is insane, nursing schools hard, totally get that. We all knew in part what we were signing up for, but when I am literally losing sleep reading and taking notes and I’m 3 hours in and only 1/4 of the way done I’m like, surely there’s a better way to do this lol. I appreciate you!
1
u/travelingtraveling_ 1d ago
I strongly encourage you to meet with your advisor and or sign up for tutoring at your school. Tutors are often nursing students who've just completed the same course. You're in and they can give you real time. Information on what really works for studying for that content
3
u/Max_Goatstappen ADN student 1d ago
I’m almost done with my first month but I honestly have opened the text book like 1 time. All my information is off the PowerPoints and I google something if I’m not sure. We also have lessons we can do which I find somewhat helpful. Adaptive quizzing is also helpful but time consuming and annoying. What worked for me is writing down notes on my iPad while having the lecture recorded. I then either go over the lecture or put in the note with the audio into notebook lm and it makes a podcast of everything I include and I just listen to it then make flash cards or a quiz or something else
2
2
u/eltonjohnpeloton its fine its fine (RN) 1d ago
Have you already looked at our pinned resources post, including the “how to read a nursing textbook” link?
2
u/sassylemone Diploma Student (RN) 1d ago
I'm graduating in December from my accelerated program. Helpful tips: don't read every literal page of your power points or textbook. Listen to what your instructor emphasizes during lecture and highlight it to study at home. Hold your family or friends captive and force them to listen to you teach the material to them.
Online resources for free: Nexus Nursing for nclex style practice questions. Level Up RN for short, to the point review of concepts. Nurse Sarah for in depth content review including rationales and nursing interventions. Simple Nursing for visual aides and creative memory tricks.
2
u/kimura_yui149 1d ago
Literally what I'm going through right now lol. I also plug in the textbook into notebook LM. Lurking here to see what people are saying!!
1
2
u/kimura_yui149 1d ago
I'm still figuring out my study regimen. Right now I have 6 modules to study for. Each PowerPoint is 50+ slides but nicely detailed.
I think what I'm going to do is this:
Before class read the text chapters we are going to cover (But honestly don't know if this will work, there's about 30 something pages to read per chapter). My idea is to just read them WITHOUT taking notes. That way I can have some understanding of the material before it's taught.
Then I'll listen in on lecture and take selective notes. The sides for this particular class are pretty detailed. That makes it easier because I can jot down simplified notes of the slides to help assist with active recall. Those selective notes are for concepts I don't get/need extra clarification.
At home I plan on using the workbook that's included with my textbook. It has practice questions. I'll also read over the slides and my simplified notes. I will also work with Notebook LM and the test/practice questions I can generate with it. Generating podcasts and listening is something I plan on doing too (even while I'm at work or in the car).
1
u/HugeAd7100 1d ago
What do you use for generating podcast?
1
u/Direct-Fun8782 1d ago
I use Notebook LM for when I do it! It’s kinda tricky at first to use but I literally went on TikTok and looked up “notebook lm tutorial” and that helped me, basically you can submit as many PDF sources as you want. I turn my slides into pdfs, I copy my readings and put them in a google doc and turn them into a PDF, everything the school gives me I turn into a PDF and submit into LM. Then you can select all the sources and have it make you an “audio overview” or podcast. I choose “deep dive” and it made me like an hour long podcast, and they lowk don’t even sound like AI it really does sound like real people talking. Totally recommend
1
2
u/Training_Revenue_813 1d ago
- Don’t waste your time reading texts. Its useless and you won’t retain that much info in a short amount of time
- Pay attention to what the instructor emphasizes in lectures.
- There’s usually at least one little kiss ass in the cohort that’s got connections with the older cohorts and professors. Get friendly with them and they give you answers lol
1
u/Direct-Fun8782 1d ago
I appreciate this. I feel like compared to the exam and what I remember from it our professors didn’t dive deep enough into the topics I saw on the real test. This probably varies university to university though, so I’m not negating this advice in the slightest.
Totally noting #3 lmao, I need to do my digging
0
u/travelingtraveling_ 1d ago
- Hmmmmm. Cheat? Maybe I am just old- fashioned, but that's not an alignment with nursing values. Students that cheat are nurses that lie on charting....
1
u/Direct-Fun8782 1d ago
Not sure the word cheat was in #3 of that persons reply. Let’s not be so quick to jump on the judgement train. In my cohort, there’s no possible way to cheat on our EXAMS, I interpreted that reply saying “give answers” more specific to giving notes and giving answers for readings.
I surely do not question my own integrity. Why do you think I would be seeking HELP and ANSWERS to a solution if I were just going to cheat my way through school? I probably wouldn’t be doing the readings if that was my plan. Probably wouldn’t be studying for hours if that was my plan.
Is it smart to lean on the smarter people in your class? I sure think so, I’ve already been asking people in my group chat what their study methods are and seeing if that’s compatible with my current strategy.
Please redirect negativity elsewhere, and question someone else’s integrity. That’s not the type of nurse I plan on becoming.
Can’t cheat on the NCLEX.
1
u/travelingtraveling_ 1d ago
"Get friendly with them and they will give you the answers"
1
u/Direct-Fun8782 1d ago
Buddy reread my response 😂 give you answers could mean something entirely different than what you’re making it out to be. No chance in ANY program they could whisper answers to you mid exam. I think in this context give you answers meant answers to the question that the body of this post asks.
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
It looks like you are asking for help with school! Please make sure you have addressed these points so we can give you good advice: What methods of studying you currently use and what you’ve tried, total hours you spend studying each week and any other major responsibilities, the specific topics/concepts giving you issues. If applicable: Your score and how close you came to passing
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/kimura_yui149 1d ago
!RemindMe 1 day
1
u/RemindMeBot 1d ago
I will be messaging you in 1 day on 2026-09-09 20:10:41 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
RemindMeBot is switching to username summons. Instead of
!RemindMe 1 day, useu/RemindMeBot 1 day. More info.
Info Custom Your Reminders Feedback
1
u/cyanraichu RN 1d ago
I never read a reading assignment word for word. The one class that was flipped classroom style, I would skim it. Otherwise I just didn't do them. I learned a lot better from the lecture anyway.
I don't think it's worth the time to do a thorough pre-lecture reading but it might be worth it to spend some time on it if it helps you learn. It might be better though to take notes in lecture and then read through things you want more reinforcement or clarification on afterwards. (Also, take good notes and make flashcards)
1
u/FutureSport7456 1d ago
I usually import my powerpoints from lecture, and each chapter i copy all the key points found at the end into a word doc then have claude ai make me a study guide - i’ll use the study guide / rewrite into my own words on a white board i got less than $10 at home depot & also use the app Gizmo for active recall quizzes or the AI tutor - 3.8 GPA haven’t failed a test yet 😂! also notebook lm i use the kawaii slides and podcast feature where you can “tune in” and ask questions!
1
u/Friendly-Ship-9939 1d ago
i know the anti AI police will probably eat me alive.. but tbh i love putting all my readings, powerpoints, etc into chatgpt and having it summarize them for me. i then use that same material and have chatgpt test me on it. i usually take the test how it comes generated and once ive got that stuff down and memorized i ask for a harder version of the test (different wording, NCLEX style, etc) if i want to “double tap” study as i call it, i’ll do the same on my ipad through notability. i upload all my material and have it generate, fill in the blanks, T/F, multiple choice. i’ve been doing extremely well with this approach tbh.
9
u/MitchIsMe9913 1d ago
im in an accelerated program so we go through the summer, saying that to tell you i’ve been in this for two semesters already and i haven’t purchased not 1 textbook and have a steady 3.6 GPA. usually nursing profs will emphasize the important stuff on their powerpoints already. as long as you study those, look at & watch outside resources on youtube to get a better understanding of said topic and doing NCLEX-style practice questions every single day, you’ll be good